Helmut Marko blamed Jos Verstappen for Max Verstappen ‘smashing the car’ at Red Bull

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Helmut Marko and Red Bull once took ‘countermeasures’ after a string of crashes for Max Verstappen.

Verstappen was involved in five major incidents in the first six races of the 2018 season. In Bahrain, he crashed out in qualifying and then made contact with Lewis Hamilton in the race, leaving him with a puncture that ultimately landed him in the barriers.

At the very next race in China, Verstappen tangled with Red Bull legend Sebastian Vettel and received a 10-second time penalty. Even more dramatic was his race-ending collision with teammate Daniel Ricciardo in Azerbaijan, though there was a debate over who was to blame.

As Roberto Chinchero explained on Motorsport.com’s Italian YouTube channel, the situation came to a head when Verstappen suffered another qualifying crash, this time at the Monaco GP.

Max Verstappen’s 2018 crashes sparked ‘a crisis within Red Bull’

According to Chinchero, Marko was ‘furious’ with Verstappen’s camp, including the driver’s father, over their perceived role in the incidents.

Indeed, a fortnight after Monaco, Jos Verstappen and Raymond Vermeulen (Max’s manager), were absent from the Canadian GP. Red Bull said this was a mutual decision.

Verstappen scored a podium in Montreal, instigating a turnaround in his season. He won the Austrian GP shortly afterwards and ultimately finished fourth in the standings, 79 points ahead of Ricciardo.

“At the start of 2018 there was also a crisis within Red Bull, with Helmut Marko getting absolutely furious with Jos Verstappen and the Verstappen clan,” Chinchero recalled.

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“And then, Max went on to be absolutely stellar, but there had also been that version of Max – he was in his fourth year of Formula 1 – and he kept smashing the car round the track, so at a certain point, Marko got angry after Monte Carlo and took some countermeasures.”

This arguably remains the toughest spell of Verstappen’s F1 career to date, though he was still only 20 at the time, such was his rapid career progression.

While he’s still one of the most aggressive drivers on the grid, Verstappen changed his driving style after these incidents to control the risk. Now, errors from the Dutchman are exceedingly rare.